Interviews// Martyn Brown - Team 17

SPOnG: And, the Nintendo stuff?

Martyn Brown: I think the Wii's been a bit of a confusing platform for us. It's all things to everybody.


SPOnG: That's true for everybody except Nintendo, though, isn't it?

Martyn Brown: Obviously Nintendo have done fantastic out of their platform. It's very hard for anybody who isn't Nintendo to nail down who's using it and when – and why, and what they want to play.


SPOnG: And is that going to come back and bite them in the backside?

Martyn Brown: There's a lot of things being said about Nintendo saying that they want to re-educate their users about the online side, and they want to grow that. Obviously they've got an eye on what Microsoft, Sony, Apple are doing.


SPOnG: Online's the way you're going to make your Micro-transactions as well, which is where the money's going to be.

Martyn Brown: Totally, so... that has to happen. They have to move to that. And I think they will, they're certainly not stupid. The challenge there is educating the type of users they have; they don't go online, they're not used to buying things.


SPOnG: They're used to eBay and their used to...

Martyn Brown: Yeah, but not with a console. But I don't think it's helped that with the Wii, the online shopping experience isn't particularly great. It's slow, it's a bit dry.

I really think they need to look at that – and I'm sure they are looking at that. I think once they crack that, that will be a bit better. I don't know why it's been quite as grim as it is at the moment. Well, they've got the storage space issue as well – though you can stick it on SD card and stuff.

I think it's just down to cultural awareness of the people using the machine. It's just a case of re-educating them.

For me, I really like the way that Live Arcade does things in terms of the whole user experience on there, whereas on the Wii, you're a number. It's kind of counter-social almost.


SPOnG: It's 'hardcore'.

Martyn Brown: I don't think that helps in terms of getting people to go on and experience it so much.